


Darkness

by percyspandapillowpet



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, I sort of went a lot further with it, M/M, post-BoO, the prompt was hiking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percyspandapillowpet/pseuds/percyspandapillowpet
Summary: “So,” Will says, slightly awkwardly, making Nico realize that he forgot to respond to whatever he last said. “Um, you wanted something to take your mind off things?” He pulls back from the hug just enough to see his face, holding him at arms length. “I’ve, uh, got an idea.”He’s not used to Will looking so unsure of himself. He’s always acting so overly cocky.Kiss me, Nico thinks. “What?” he asks.Will smiles, then, his confidence restored. “Let’s go for a hike.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sentimentalscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimentalscribe/gifts).



> @Lonelyextroverts gave me the prompt "hiking" and this is what I ended up with. Enjoy!

Darkness. Never-ending darkness. It envelops him from head to toe and filled his very being from the inside out. Somehow, he knows he is falling. Endlessly falling into an infinite abyss.

But then, just like that, it’s over. His eyes snap open, and he immediately sits up.

He’s in his cabin, which isn’t much brighter, but there is at least a little bit of moonlight trickling in through his window.

The moon. He needs to see it. Not even bothering to change out of his pajamas, he pushes off his bedsheets and rushes out of his cabin. As soon as he opens the door, he’s greeted with a blast of frigid midnight air, but he plows through it without a second thought.

He runs. He runs and he runs and he runs until he reaches the edge of the woods and can’t  run anymore. Then he collapses against a tree and falls to his knees on the ground, body wracked with sobs and tremors.

It’s been nearly five months since the battle ended. He really has nothing to worry about anymore. But, every so often during an unsuspecting sleep, the darkness returns.

It never goes away easily. It’s thick, all-consuming, and it chills Nico to his bones. He usually ends up just like this—awake in a panic, into the woods in a flurry. Eventually, morning rises, and then he always regains some sort of mask of composure and is able to function fairly normally for the rest of the day.

This is earlier than he usually wakes, though—barely past midnight. He’s got a long while to wait until the sunrise.

Nico curses under his breath, resting his head against the trunk of the tree. He doesn’t mind that the bark is scratchy and uncomfortable on his skin. He doesn’t care.

 _Why does it have to be like this?_ he wonders. Why does he have to be so damn sensitive all the time? Why can’t he just recover from the war and move on with life like a normal person?

 _Because of her,_ a low whisper in his brain tells him. _You never got closure with your sister. You never got to see her, one last time, before she died, tell her what she really meant to you._

 _But I did,_ he argues. This happens often, unfortunately—a fight amongst opposing views in his mind. _I did see her. I raised her spirit from the dead._

The other part of him refuses to let it go. _The dead are very different from the living. That wasn’t really her. It was a ghost of what she once was, a shadow, a mere memory. Perhaps it was even just all in your head—_

 _All in my head,_ Nico repeats over again in his mind. _It’s all in my head. This is all in my head, all in my—_

He can sense the person behind him before they speak.

“Nico?”

He knows who it is from just that single word. He doesn’t bother turning around, because he can hear the sound of two feet crunching leaves and snapping twigs, approaching him and carrying their body in a sprint. Will Solace’s arm is resting on his back before he can even count to ten.

“Nico, are you okay?” he asks, voice lowered. Then he shakes his head. “No, never mind. That was a stupid question. Of course you’re not okay.”

But Nico nods. “No, I am. I’m okay. It was just a stupid nightmare.”

“A nightmare, maybe,” Will echoes, “but not a stupid one. You can talk about it, if you want, but you don’t have to.”

Normally, Nico wouldn’t be too happy with Will for rubbing his hand up and down along his spine, massaging out the tension, but right now, he couldn’t have asked for anything better.

“I just need to take my mind off it,” he mumbles. “Then…then I’ll…” His words are cut off when Will pulls him into an embrace, and Nico realizes that he’s much softer than tree bark. His arms are soft and soothing, but firm and steady, and warm as a bonfire. In this moment, there’s no place he’d rather be. He wishes he could just sleep like this every night, curled up right here with this dumb Apollo boy instead of under heavy blankets in the empty, dark confines of the Hades cabin.

And then it hits him. “Hey, what were you doing out here at this time of night, Solace?”

Will shrugs, but his arms remain in place. “I had a hunch.”

“A hunch?”

“A hunch that someone might need me.” He begins twirling a piece of Nico’s hair in his fingers, and Nico is thankful that the darkness of the night veils his blush from view. “So I took a walk.”

Nico doesn’t question it, just hums, letting exhaustion pour over him and close his eyelids, and acquiesces—albeit not very reluctantly—to Will’s touch.

It’s true; he’s been harboring a crush on him for a few months now, ever since that ridiculous three-day infirmary lockdown. As soon as it began, Nico was sure that it was going to be the most unbearable seventy-two-hour-period in his life, but he ended up not even wanting to leave.

He did leave, of course, but he made sure to visit on the daily. Each Monday, Will assigned him to cut bandages. On Wednesdays, he helped organize the storage room. On Fridays he took inventory. And on all the days in between, he acted as Will’s personal assistant—bringing him snacks and drinks and holding various bottles of antiseptic while he treated a patient’s wound. Eventually, all this infirmary work led to Nico approaching him one day and asking to simply hang out. For fun.

And fun, it was. Every day since, they’ve been inseparable. Nico would even go so far as to say that Will was his best friend, though he’s sure the feeling isn’t mutual.

He also knows his crush is definitely not reciprocated…though, occasionally Will can lean toward the flirtatious side during their usual banter. But it’s probably nothing.

“So,” Will says, slightly awkwardly, making Nico realize that he forgot to respond to whatever he last said. “Um, you wanted something to take your mind off things?” He pulls back from the hug just enough to see his face, holding him at arms length. “I’ve, uh, got an idea.”

He’s not used to Will looking so unsure of himself. He’s always acting so overly cocky.

 _Kiss me,_ Nico thinks. “What?” he asks.

Will smiles, then, his confidence restored. “Let’s go for a hike.”

Nico just stares at him like he’s grown a third eye. “A hike?”

He nods, standing and letting go of Nico. “Yeah. A hike. As in, a walk through these woods.” He offers Nico a hand. “You in?”

Nico can’t seem to do anything but accept. “I guess so.”

***

The whole time, Nico can’t focus on anything except the way Will’s hand felt wrapped around his own for that brief moment.

Well, that and the way Will’s profile looks in the moonlight. But that’s another story.

“So,” Will says after a few moments. “Care to elaborate on your nightmare?” Then he hesitates. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Nico shakes his head. “I’d rather not. It was the same as usual. I want to talk about…I don’t know, nicer things.”

Will hums in agreement, and Nico realizes that he’s looking over at him, which makes him blush and stare at the ground.

“Something hilarious happened in the infirmary today,” Will then begins. “So, I was just minding my own business, sorting our bandages…”

He launches into some story about Austin playing pop songs on his saxophone and Kayla falling on her face, but Nico’s not paying attention to the words so much as his voice. Will, despite being the least musically inclined of the Apollo campers, has a voice like a flute. Or a piano. Or a violin. It doesn’t matter—it is just beautiful and melodic and Nico would listen to it forever.

At some point during their walk, Nico notices Will’s hand hanging by his side, swinging back and forth with each stride. A part of his brain itches for him to grab it, to hold it again and experience that shock of electricity through his nerves.

Then he trips on a rock, and out of instinct, he does.

“Sorry!” he squeaks quickly. “My foot just got caught, I—”

But Will doesn’t let go, just gives him a warm but slightly confused smile. “It’s okay, Nico.” 

He then squeezes his hand even tighter and is about to start walking again, but Nico stays grounded. He tries not to look at him, averting his eyes to the canopy of trees, the full moon, the stars, anything else. He takes a deep, shaky breath.

“Thank you, Will,” he says.

Will smiles again, stepping back toward him—even closer than before. “For what?”

Unable to resist, Nico stares at him—at his mouth, his hair, their hands…but mostly his eyes, which are colorless in the dark but reflect the light of the moon like ponds. “For everything,” he replies. “For healing me. For giving me a reason to stay here. For being my…friend.”

Will then takes Nico’s other hand, and a shudder passes through his body, a shock of heat that contrasts with the sharp bite of a nighttime breeze. “Friend,” he says. “Huh.”

For a second, Nico panics. He’s stepped too far. Will doesn’t think of him like that; their relationship extends no further than that of a healer and a patient.

But then Will pulls their joint hands up to his lips and kisses Nico’s, which only adds to the flame that has been lit inside of him.

“I was just thinking about that,” he says, apparently not noticing how Nico is internally screeching like a girl at a concert. “Being friends with you for the past few months has been great. But maybe we could…I don’t know; I’m being stupid.”

He starts to drop their hands, but Nico is quick to squeeze them together again. “No!” he protests, a little louder than he’s proud of. “No. No, you’re not being stupid. Go on, please.”

By now, Will’s hiding his face with his other hand, most likely blushing redder than his father’s sacred cows underneath. “I can’t,” he mumbles. “I had it all worked out in my head, and now I forget how I worded it.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Dork.”

Will peeks through his fingers. “You try saying it yourself, then.”

Nico’s cheeks heat up. “Uh, I don’t think so.”

Then Will mutters something incoherent, still trying to cover his face.

“Speak up,” Nico says.

Will groans. “I _said,_ how about you just kiss me?” He hesitates. “Because that would work. That would be good enough—”

He’s cut off as Nico does just that.

Darkness. Never-ending darkness. That’s what Nico’s life has always been full of. It surrounds him no matter where he goes or what he does. And here he is, experiencing his first kiss, hidden in the forest by the shadows of the night.

It’s perfect. It’s wonderful. It’s better than anything he could have ever imagined.

 _Maybe darkness isn’t so bad, after all,_ he wonders, but he doesn’t think on it any further, because he’s wrapped in warm arms and can’t be bothered to focus on anything else.


End file.
